Abstract: This paper reports on the level and the difference of the development of ability to name colors by 3-6 year old children in China's Han, Mongolian, Uighur, Zhuang, Bai and Hani nationalities. Eight familiar color chips, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black and white, were used as color test samples in this study. The results were indicated as follows: 1) the percentages of correct color naming of all the six nationality children increased with age; 2) the total mean percentages of correct naming of colors by the different nationality children were as follows: Han, 75.7%; Mongolian, 74.9%; Hani, 59.8%; Zhuang, 57.8%; Bai, 56.3%; Uighur, 42.9%; 3) the eight colors did not present equal degree of difficulty for correct color naming, some were easier than the others, but the degrees of difficulty of correctly naming the eight colors were very consistent for all the six nationality children; 4) the order of colors according to the percentages of correct color naming scores by total Chinese young children were as follows: firstly black, red and white, then yellow and green, and then blue, the last were purple and orange.

Key words: color naming, children of different nationalities, development